The Record of Unusual Creatures

Amid Hao Ren’s bewilderment, Vivian took him to the open space at the back of the house. The ashes from the summoning ritual the day before had been cleaned up. There were only a few traces of char on the spot, and next to the spot was a tarpaulin shed, under which his old motorcycle was parked: it was the result of three days’ worth of elbow grease from Y’zaks and his daughter. Hao Ren stared at it for a long while before he finally recognized the parts in the motorcycle…

He looked at the burning demonic engine, wondering if he could take the two-wheeler onto the street; the traffic police would definitely raise their eyebrows…

“What do you want me to see?” Hao Ren took his eyes off his old junk and looked at Vivian curiously.

Vivian did not say a word but raised her hand, pointing at a rock on the side; silently, the rock immediately weathered into sand before Hao Ren’s eyes. Even the grass next to it withered and died in an instant.

Vivian knitted her brows. “Looks like it’s not easy to control. I intended to only demonstrate it with the rock.”

Hao Ren was wide-eyed. He turned and looked at his side; he could still see the aftermath of the chaos left behind last night: large patches of vegetation had withered and sandstone had weathered—the same thing Vivian just demonstrated. It was of that evil spirit’s power!

“What happened to you?!” Hao Ren looked at Vivian, shocked. “Isn’t this the ability of that ghost last night?”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” said Vivian. “I seem to have suddenly acquired this ability. It was probably after returning from Mars yesterday that my head felt heavy, but I thought I was just tired… Now, it looks like that was the moment the change occurred.”

Hao Ren did not know what to say, but things were already very clear: Vivian had acquired the ability of the evil spirit after she killed it last night!

Both of them felt something was amiss. They had to figure it out. Vivian demonstrated her newfound ability repeatedly; she could destroy things with her fingers without having to touch them just like the evil spirit did the previous night. She could also release a visible red light to increase the power of her attack. Obviously, the first type of attack was more dangerous. Hao Ren frowned as he looked at Vivian. “How do you feel with this ability?”

“Nothing. It’s just like instinct,” said Vivian. “I was just shocked when I first used it—I just wanted to tell you that I broke Rollie’s bowl…”

Clutching his forehead, Hao Ren said, “I’ll deal with the dumb cat. It seems that you don’t know how you got this ability… Could it be that you have absorbed the enemy’s power after killing it? Or something stick on you?”

Vivian as a little nervous hearing that. “The last time I checked, my physique is fine. But I think it would be better to get a full body check in the medical pod.”

“Well, you cannot be too careful,” Hao Ren nodded, but he still could not help but recall the melee last night. Images from his memory flashed in his mind. The memory of the crimson moon and also the ubiquitous ‘crimson moon’ caught his attention. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“About the ‘crimson moon’,” Hao Ren stared into Vivian’s eyes. “The biggest threat we faced when fighting the evil spirits yesterday came from the crimson moon. I know your appellation is called Countess of the Crimson Moon, so I would like to know more about this ability. But of course, you don’t have to tell me if it’s a secret.”

“Nothing that I can’t tell,” replied Vivian, waving her hand casually. “It’s not even a secret. I’ve never kept it as a secret. Only because of people who had seen the crimson moon had all died, it became a mystery…”

On hearing that, a chill ran up Hao Ren’s spine. “As if you’re not mysterious enough?!”

Vivian smiled. “The crimson moon is my natural ability. I don’t know why other Blood Clans couldn’t do this; maybe they are not pure enough? Whatever it is, I can make use of the power of the moonlight, and I’m also able to use create moonlight in a moonless night. I feel that the moonlight ability of that evil spirit has a lot of similarity with mine, like you said. I can also make use of the moonlight to perform shadow shift, become stealthy, or transfer my power to the moon and shine on the entire battlefield. Other than that, my moonlight is not corrosive nor possesses life-withering effect. Yeah, it is more like a medium by which I can do something or enhance my own ability, but the crimson moon itself contains no special power.”

Vivian was proud when speaking of her fame skill. She had no hesitation expressing this sense of pride and prestige as the oldest vampire. Hao Ren believed that the real Crimson Moon must be much more powerful than what Vivian had described—Vivian did not usually like to boast about herself, her description of the crimson moon must had been more conservative. In any case, according to Vivian’s description, only part of her crimson moon characteristics were consistent with the evil spirit of last night.

“Do you still think that evil spirit is a part of me?” Vivian noticed Hao Ren had fallen into thought; she could not help but ask.

“Somewhat,” Hao Ren nodded. “There are many similarities in both moonlight abilities, but some part of her ability are what you’re lacking, and after you killed her, you have somehow ‘absorbed’ these new skills… could it be that last night’s evil spirit was actually a part of your lost ability? Someone stole and sealed your ability when you were asleep or at the weakest moment, so she was similar to you, but her ability was different, and it was you who had completely crushed and absorbed her… Well, this theory sounds convincing. Isn’t it?”

Vivian’s lips pursed. “You don’t feel embarrassed at all for all that boasting. However, what you said does make sense. These phenomena look exactly like what you’ve guessed. I’m feeling helpless: I’m the most ignorant one after so much had happened. I don’t even know who and when about that magic book… and ironically its author apparently had seen me in person before.”

Vivian looked lonely on her face whenever she talked about her lost memories. The feeling of being unable to control herself made the ancient vampire very frustrated. She looked down at her hands. “How much have I lost?”

Noticing the frustration on Vivian’s face, Hao Ren quickly steered away the conversation. “Ahem, let’s not delve in about the past. Regarding your moon, did you say that you could summon a moonlight in a moonless night? Is it really out of thin air?”

“Yeah,” Vivian nodded. “That’s really what ‘summoning the crimson moon’ is about. If I could only perform the summoning during certain time and place, I would have been dead many times. However, summoning the Crimson Moon is very exhausting and not easy to control. I rarely use this trick.”

Hao Ren believed so. After all, he had only seen Vivian did it once when they first met Y’zaks. After that, Vivian had never summoned her moon, presumably, too exhausting. However, he also dared to say that, when Vivian was in her full power cycle, she had definitely made the crimson moon shone more than once.

Unfortunately, the countess vampire had forgotten all that.

“If you were cast on Mars, can you summon the Crimson Moon?” asked Hao Ren, wanting to confirm his suspicion.

Vivian nodded affirmatively. “Of course I could. My crimson moon is not actually a real moon. It’s a magic. Though I have never gone up there to check it out myself, I guess it should be something like a projection.”

“Last night, the ‘red-haired you’ could only use the moon on Earth to create her moonlight,” said Hao Ren. “She could do nothing after cast to Mars. This shows that at least in terms of Crimson Moon ability, she was still not perfect.”

Red-haired Vivian’s Crimson Moon had some powerful special abilities, but ‘must borrow the real moonlight to make it effective’, this ability was obviously like a defective product. Knowing about this clue, Hao Ren could only be more convinced that the evil spirit he met last night was actually part of Vivian’s ability.

Vivian massaged her forehead; things were making her anxious. “Do you think I have more abilities sealed in other places?”

With a heavy heart, Hao Ren exhaled. “I don’t rule out this possibility.”